


Notes of Home

by samzillastomps



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Serious Talks, discussions of pining, implied pre-relationship jealousy, some confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps
Summary: Zevran Arainai joined up with Warden Ruari Mahariel's band of unlikely fighters in order to avoid things. Yet when he sees Ruari's affections being doted upon someone other than himself, it forces up longings that a former-Crow would normally be capable of putting aside. Unable to get over his emotions by himself, he has a frank discussion with a fellow non-Ferelden instead, and in doing so figures out what exactly he is homesick for.For Apostate, whose prompt to me was "evening, rainy river's edge, and melody for the wild". This is a Zev fic that somehow couldn't get away from romantic pining no matter how hard I tried. Eventually I leaned into it, because it was getting a liiiittle close to the deadline to not. I hope you like it, because I definitely interpreted the 'melody' bit slightly out of the norm ^^;;;;





	Notes of Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apostate (394percentdone)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/394percentdone/gifts).



There she was again. Doing the thing that she always seemed to do when she was happy, the tuck of hair back behind her pointed ears. Both of her hands pulling her uneven black strands back behind her neck, holding them out of her face for one merciful moment, one brief span that offered him a chance to see her eyes with stark clarity.

Ruari Mahariel had the most striking brown eyes.

Before meeting her, Zevran hadn’t been sure such a color could be so startling in its clarity. If he’d been pinned to the spot before meeting her, he would have said blue was his favorite, or perhaps a vibrant green.

Yet hers…

Her irises reminded him of rich clay, peppered with light hazel pebbles and ringed with mossy green that one had to get very close to observe-

An elbow to his ribs switched Zevran’s attention to the bard at his side.

Leliana, without bothering to look over at him, had caught on to his gaze and warned him with a quick jab. He could not yet discern if she did it out of protective friendly instincts, or out of jealousy, but either way the redhead was right. He was too obvious.

Ruari had not reacted when he’d effused her with compliments even from the beginning of their time together; she'd merely smiled and told him he was welcome to bestow her with praise when he wished. They’d flirted nigh near constantly since then, and when he’d begun to sit close enough for her to touch, she hadn’t shied away.

It hadn’t taken her long to warm up to him. In her, he saw a strangely similar, bright nature. One dulled by what she’d been forced away from, by what she’d been forced to choose.

Had she wanted to die, too?

When she’d taken them into the Deep Roads, had it been out of-

Leliana elbowed him again.

Zevran pointedly moved further away from her beside the fire, shooting back a glare that he was sure she would not miss. However, in order to save face, it was probably best he keep his eyes from straying too long on Ruari’s form.

Despite a distinct lack of shame, Zevran let his gaze wander out past the campfire. He tried to ignore how Ruari had released her choppy raven locks back before her face, and was now rummaging through her pack excitedly.

Her companion Grey Warden was at her side, ever dutiful, basking in her open affection. Alistair, a smitten boy in the body of a man, pining after something he could never begin to understand.

And Ruari either allowed it, or ignored it, or worse… desired it.

It was pathetic, Zevran thought, just as his desire to look at her was equally pathetic. As that thought solidified, he made a stolid promise to himself and refused to glance back at her. Not even when he heard her teasing Alistair, the hint of her dry wit tantalizingly melding with her easygoingness.

No.

Better to watch the trees.

Scouting was more necessary than flirting, for once.

The sun had barely begun to set, casting mellow tendrils of gold and pink shimmering through the trees of the forest they found themselves in. The Brecilian was just before them, ready to be taken, ready to be explored. They were here to find the Dalish, a prospect both he and (Zevran suspected) Ruari were anticipating more than the others.

They’d gone to gather this treaty last.

Had she planned it this way?

Avoiding the Dalish because of-

“Maker’s breath, it’s amazing,” Alistair’s voice carried over the fire. “I love it, where did you even find this?”

“When we were in Haven,” Ruari answered, her somehow always-scratchy little voice reminding Zevran of crackling fire embers. “To tell you the truth, I forgot I even had it. Turns out there’s a bunch of things in my pack I’ve hoarded, a bunch of sh- stuff from here and there.”

So she’d taken Wynne’s desire for her to curse less to heart then? Pity. Zevran loved her filthy mouth.

Alistair, on the other hand, glossed over her switch easily.

“I’m, I don’t know what to say.”

Zevran resisted finishing an eyeroll, and instead stared a hole at the sky above as it darkened to a velvety indigo overhead.

“I haven’t seen a figurine like it, wow,” Alistair said, laughing. “Thank you!”

“You are very welcome, fellow Warden,” Ruari rasped, her voice cutting low and gravelly as it tended to do when she teased.

Unable to help himself, Zevran glanced over, right as the man wrapped Ruari in an embrace.

Her arms wrapped around Alistair’s back, returning the sentiment. He watched as the man turned and gave her a clumsy peck on the cheek, and Zevran heard her laugh and could not tell if it was genuine. It certainly sounded so.

Zevran stood up so quickly that he caught an edge of lightheadedness on the cusp of his vision. Without wobbling under the weight of… whatever this was, he made his way off into the darkness, his feet carrying him almost quickly enough to escape the startled throat-clear Leliana gave in his absence.

He had thought about announcing some sort of perimeter walk, or perhaps joking about the way Ruari handled her fellow Warden as one might a toddler. But he had done those things before. He’d tried the lines, tried the snark, and gotten far.

Or so he’d thought.

After he'd been recruited to follow her, she'd trusted him so easily, seamlessly, and had been directly flirty back with him. Eventually, as they grew closer, as Zevran began to drop his own bravado, she’d told him of her family. Of her past. Had opened up about her lonely moments, had given him vulnerability when he’d expected nothing more than a swift and beautiful romp in the grass.

Or perhaps an even swifter death.

He’d thought…

Growling, Zevran swatted at a thigh-high fern as he approached the lazy river they’d made camp near. Such thoughts were ridiculous, even more so for an assassin. This kind of thinking not only got you killed, it got those you lo- those you cared for killed as well. His desire to be near her was going to be the undoing of him, and yet he could not seem to merely push. It. Down.

Something tickled at the back of his neck. He sensed he was not alone almost immediately, his arms tingling with the telltale notion of someone other than himself occupying the same space.

A small glug of a bottle being overturned, then the sound of cloth being shaken out. Excess being discarded. Oil, if his sense of smell was anything to go by. Zevran, moving closer to the riverbank in the twilight, took in the scenery with eyes unclouded by… whatever Ruari had him feeling.

Huh.

It was merely Sten.

The hulking granite sculpture of a man was seated on a stump, his greatsword stretched across his knees as he carefully cleaned it of blood and viscera. That was the sword they’d run back and forth all over Ferelden to find, because Ruari had gotten a snake in her bonnet (or however you say it) about helping him.

Funny.

Ruari helping Sten didn’t inspire nearly the same level of white-hot impotence that seeing her embrace Alistair did.

Why was that?

Was he running a fever, perhaps? Deluded with illness and not infatuation?

As Zevran slapped the back of his own hand to his forehead to check, Sten looked up and gave a grunt of what Zevran took to be acknowledgement. At a loss for words, unsure of why he had even sought to leave the glow of the fire behind him so quickly, Zevran walked up to stand at the Qunari’s side like he’d intended to be there all along.

“Ah, my friend, I thought I would find you here.”

“You did not.”

“How do you know that? Is the true meaning of Beresaad ‘mind-reader’ perhaps?”

"You are a terrible liar."

"Tsk, my one downfall as an assassin, you are absolutely correct. Luckily, I find myself to be charming enough that I can merely coerce, and do not have to resort to outright lies for most of my ventures."

The Qunari paused and looked up with a bored look on his face.

“You must be upset,” Sten said, his voice a monotone that flared Zevran’s hackles.

Zevran barely registered the disdain in Sten’s voice.

Was he suddenly that easy to read?

Could everyone tell how much difficulty he was having, in controlling himself?

This was worse than he thought.

He had to-

“Now that I have my sword returned to me, you will have no more innuendos to make with the dwarf.”

For only a moment, Zevran had to think about what Sten was referring to. In merely the span of a heartbeat, he found a wry smile returning to his lips. With a rich chuckle, he turned to the Qunari with his hand on one hip.

“I am offended, my friend. You severely underestimate my snapping wit and ability to make almost anything sound _sensual_.” Sten groaned at Zevran’s emphasis on the word, and Zevran finished before he could comment. “However, the dwarf might need some time. I doubt he realizes your sheath is no longer empty, for more often than not he is too focused on his own.”

Sten snorted, and Zevran marveled that it seemed to be the closest he’d come to laughing, however dryly.

Cautious, he approached a bit closer to the Qunari, glancing down at the sword he was polishing as he did so. A desire to make an inappropriate remark welled up so strongly in his breast that Zevran once more felt faint. But then it passed, and he could take in the man before him with a more detached level of interest.

He saw how carefully Sten held onto the greatsword’s grip, how reverently he smoothed the cloth along its blade. Sten treated it not delicately, but carefully; it was strange to see the distinction so clearly, especially embodied in the thick hands of a Qunari warrior, yet here it was. Zevran hesitated, then dropped into a low crouch at the river’s edge to watch him still.

“You must feel whole again, having found it,” he said quietly.

“Asala,” Sten said, lifting his eyes to Zevran’s. “Not merely ‘it’, elf.”

“Fair, she is beautiful enough to warrant the name.” Sten’s eyes fell once more at the comment, and Zevran cleared his throat. “Does she feel as you remember?”

Sten said nothing. The silence, however, was not truly silence. Between them, the summer song of crickets combined with the symphony of the babbling river, its melody poignant and foreign. For several minutes, the sounds of rustling ferns, of the breeze through oak trees, of faraway campfires crackling in the summer dusk, this song stretched between them until

Zevran could take it no longer.

“I do not presume to speak for Seheron, but this place sounds strange, no? It is subtle, do not fret if you can't discern it, yet... it does not sound like this in Antiva,” Zevran said, his voice low, almost as if he was talking to himself

He heard Sten pause in his ministration, but gave no other indication he was listening. Still, Zevran continued. “We do not have these insects in my homeland. Instead, there are…”

He trailed off.

There was no point in telling a servant of the Qun of his own homeland, not when Sten had never been past Seheron. How could Zevran say that he missed his country in some ways, and yet it wasn’t homesickness that cut at him as he listened to Ferelden’s song? It was not a desire to return home that plagued him, and he felt no particular loyalty to it. He and Sten had had conversations about how interchangeable Sten’s personhood was with his role in the Qun. Sten would go back, if he could.

But Zevran felt like he’d been changed, inextricably dragged into Ferelden and shackled there, stupidly and willingly, to Ruari Mahariel. Whether she wanted him or not, he was content to be near her, to trail at her side and protect her should she ever need it, learn from her was she amenable to teaching him, 'wooing' her if he could, as the unwieldy Warden Alistair referred to it.

How could he explain that to someone who didn’t even-

“Why did you stop?”

“I… excuse me?” Zevran whispered, a bit worried the hypothetical fever he must be suffering from was now causing auditory hallucinations. “Say again, my friend?”

“You stopped before explaining what Antiva sounds like, elf.”

Zevran let his surprise roll of off him, hoping to hide it from the Qunari, a smile manifesting wider on his lips as he reached out to touch the silt at the riverbank to buy himself a moment.

“It depends on where you are. Within the city, there is music. Chimes. The sound of footsteps, of manipulation. The music of my childhood really.” He paused, then shrugged. “It is not a bad song. But there is something different about hiking alone along the mountain path outside of the city, towards the beaches. The crags sound different when the waves hit them, rocky, not moss-covered and wet, not smelling like dogs. You can smell the ocean, salt and sun and se-salt,” he faltered, replacing his final s-word with something more palatable than the _enticing_ one he'd had in mind.

Again, Sten gave a small huff, something Zevran found equally encouraging and unnerving.

He continued.

“At night, there are frogs that perch on the back of leaves, and when they sing it is a soft warble, like a purr. Nothing like the grating of insects here. It is quiet, a lullaby, a harmony of notes not unlike a lute song. When mixed with the methodical calls of the nocturnal hunters, locating their prey and their brethren, it is indescribable. I would fall asleep immediately were I to hear it, I promise you this.”

“To the sounds of predators?”

“Yes,” Zevran chanced a glance backwards at the Qunari, half joking. “I would not sleep where they could find me, do not worry.”

Sten nodded, not looking at Zevran, but instead out towards the flowing river before them. Zevran turned as well, his thoughts clutching at one another but never latching long enough to form sentences. Inside, tumultuous and thick, he could only discern two tangible currents.

One, he was not quite as homesick as his words might lend one to believe. In fact, the idea of returning to Antiva, even if it meant leaving behind the muck that came with Ferelden, gave him a dark sense of apprehension. So much so that he did not want to even entertain the thought.

The second thought, the one more frightening, was that he was feeling anything at all.

It had been uncommon, at first, to begin to care once more about whether or not he lived. At the mercy of Ruari and her companions, he’d slept soundly knowing that should she wish to kill him, she could. He was dead if he left her, dead if he stayed, and that absolute gave him a twisted sense of ease. It took the control from him, took the decision away in many respects. Her arms were powerful enough to lift that broadsword high above her head, surely they could’ve strangled him in his sleep if she’d had enough of him.

A twist in his guts signaled the resurgence of a memory, of when Ruari had used her arms for other things.

Hadn’t she held him not long ago? Hugged him after a particularly harrowing experience in the Deep Roads, and not only that. She’d allowed him to kiss her as they shook from the adrenaline of almost losing each other to an arena neither of them had thought they’d survive.

And yet, she also remained close to the Grey Warden.

Alistair was almost always by her side.

She’d just gifted him something again today, another little trinket for him to hold preciously in his hands. Did Alistair know Zevran had held those hands to his own cheek, pressing his lips to their knuckles?

Or, more painfully, was Zevran simply unaware if she’d done such a thing with Alistair as well?

Sten said something, causing Zevran to turn.

“Pardon?”

“I asked if you saw something in the water,” Sten said dryly. “Your hands went to the pommels of your blades.”

Zevran straightened, swallowing hard.

Ridiculous.

Yet, he could feel that Sten was right. He released his hold on his daggers, giving a shake of his head.

“Ah yes, I must have just been lost in thought. Recalling our last battle, perhaps, in the Proving Grounds.”

“You fought well.” Sten leaned down over his blade. “You put yourself in unnecessary peril, however, volunteering in order to watch the Warden’s back by yourself.”

“Luckily for me, peril is like a spice atop the blandness of everyday life. A good peppering of peril now and again is good for the soul.”

“It will end in your soul being permanently separated from your body, should you continue to prioritize her safety over the position of advantage.”

“Are you about to pillowtalk me with Qunari battle tactics?” Zevran asked, trying to keep the bite from his voice rather unsuccessfully. “Because if so, I am afraid I must postpone such a thing until I am not still recovering from a victory. You must allow a man his afterglow.”

“Forget that I advised you not to die, then.”

“Already forgotten,” Zevran purred.

Rather than responding, Sten glanced up at the sky. Zevran felt it too, a plink of a drop right in the center of his furrowed brow. Then another, and another, until the river was overrun by a hush of gentle summer rain drops dancing upon its surface.

It was almost a mist, so light was the storm, and Zevran could hear the camp behind them bustling as they sought to pull food and belongings inside the tents. Instead of wandering back to aid them, he pulled his hood over his hair, wrapping his cloak about himself even though the rain was warm with summer heat.

Sten made a noise, as if only just noting the weather and what it meant for them, and then he spoke.

"It is unwise to stand out here in the rain.”

"I never claimed wisdom."

"There are things to be done at camp-"

“You do not command me,” Zevran said, rising to the occasion of having something to lash out at in dancing sarcasm. “I am free to go where I wish. If that means standing in the rain like a foolish idiot, then so be it.”

“Elf-”

"Do not pretend you care, Qunari."

"I was not about to," Sten said darkly, a warning in his tone.

“Well, then why are you even here?” Zevran asked, but he could say whether the question was directed to himself or to the Qunari before him. Before he could ruminate too long on the query, he added hotly, "Why do you stay?"

Sten stood up, carefully gathering his belongings as he sheathed the now immaculate greatsword he’d been cleaning. He stood at his full height, towering over Zevran, yet his expression was not one of annoyance or even boredom. For the first time (and perhaps it was the darkening of the storm cloud or the foggy rain that clouded Zevran’s vision) Sten looked strangely sympathetic.

He had not even looked at Zevran in such a manner when they’d discussed the Crow that had been mauled apart by jungle cats.

“I am here,” Sten said quietly, “because the Warden has asked that I accompany her, even on the aimless errands she somehow deems worthy of her time.”

Zevran felt that same something again, a twinge, an ache he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“What loyalties do you have towards a Dalish elf?” he asked, more out of curiosity than any lingering frustration.

“She is a different leader than what I expected. She doles out mercy where it is not always deserved,” Sten continued, looking down the bridge of his nose at Zevran. “But she has not made an easy decision yet, nor made one lightly. At the end of the day, her frivolity is tolerable. And also… very rarely truly frivolous.”

“You are merely saying that because she bought you those sweets the last time we were in Denerim,” Zevran rebounded, trying to lighten what felt suddenly important and weighted.

“She gave me a gift yesterday as well,” Sten said pointedly, and lightning flashed above them. “A painting she found, that she cut from the canvas and rolled up so as not to damage it. Did you know that she cared for it so meticulously?”

“No,” Zevran replied, his eyes flinted in suspicion.

“Did you see her give it to me? You must have, for you made a comment about it.”

Zevran straightened his shoulders, his eyes growing darker beneath his hood. He’d made some sort of colorful allusion to how Ruari could be a subject for a painting, he was sure.

“Yes. I remember.”

“You did not react like this when she gave me the painting.”

“React like what, my friend?”

“Brooding.”

Zevran scoffed.

“I am not brooding.”

Sten said nothing.

“You must not have heard how effusively Alistair praised her gift, then,” Zevran murmured. “How he cooed over the toy she found especially for him. It was as a child does, it is not brooding that drives me away, purely an allergic reaction to such public displays of affection.”

Again, he was met with a noiseless Qunari statue.

More jokes welled up in Zevran’s breast, more snide comments, more blasé excuses to cover his trail. He had so many choices, so many ways to evade such unsaid accusations.

Yet he found he no longer wanted to offer them.

Ruari had kissed him in Orzammar. That had not been a lie, it had been one good thing amidst a slew of awful fatalistic bullshit. She’d expressed nerves about joining him in his tent once they made camp, and he’d retracted, and maybe that had been a mistake. But he could not bring himself to regret it, not when she had seemed so relieved that he was pulling away. Even though here he was, waiting, respecting, and pining.

Pining!

Him!

Zevran, who knew quicker and better than most, who guarded himself with careful evasion and skillful diversions, he was standing by a riverbank longing for Ruari to hold him to her the way she always seemed to hold Alistair, and staring down a Qunari who was just as equally unhinged. A Qunari who had diverted from the mission, if only briefly, that had been set before him by his superiors.

The revelation left Zevran calmer.

Sten was also different for having met Ruari, even in his own way.

That meant something, at least in the moment.

The rain beat down harder, masking their silence with its pelting consistency, and Zevran opened his mouth to speak after what felt like too long.

“I know it's pointless. We all realize how pointless this is, no? And yet I wish… I wish she’d choose me,” he confessed, his words lost to the thunder above them.

A summer storm fully unleashed drowned out the thing Zevran did not want to confront. Thunder rumbled over his admission, tumbling over his words like rocks down a hill, squashing them and leaving them flat in its wake. In the misty hush afterwards, staring impotently at the one person he doubted could understand his frustrations, Zevran lashed out and spat towards the river.

“Braska! Your silence is worse than your lectures, and that is saying something. Had I know I would disturb you into chiding me about gift-giving I would have-”

Zevran felt something smashed against the center of his chest, so quick and heavy that it knocked a breath from him and cut off his protests. In the flat of Sten’s palm was something small, a letter perhaps. It crumpled like paper as he pulled it away from the Qunari’s hand, and Sten stood shaking his head in the rain even as the downpour began to taper off.

“I am not chiding you. I do not presume to know how a Crow deals with such an influx of unwanted emotions… but I can tell you that as a Beresaad, it took getting used to.”

Zevran narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

“Ruari made you feel something, too?”

“No more than anyone. You all subject me to your unnecessary affections, in your own ways.”

Zevran glanced down to the paper in his hand. Sten explained it before he had a chance to ask.

“It is a small sketch from a book the Warden found for me. It is not my taste, I do not… feel anything when I look upon ink and pen scrawls. It does not evoke the way oil paintings do.”

Zevran unfolded the paper, revealing a rough drawing.

Breathless, he recognized architecture he hadn’t seen since he’d fled Antiva. The columns, the alleys, the way the carts lined the street and the flags danced; he’d walked this road before, he was certain of it. He could almost hear the sound of it as he held the wax-sealed paper at the river’s edge.

“Why are you giving this to me?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Because I, too, remember the lullaby of my homeland, and I think of how the song of Ferelden does not match the one in my mind.” Sten’s voice was stern as ever despite the sentiment. “It helps to think of it, to remind myself that my home is there should I ever wish to return. I do not know if it will help you.”

Zevran glanced back down to Antiva, to the snippet of his past life.

“And if I do not wish to go back?”

“Then that is not my gift to you, but hers.”

"How so?" Zevran whispered. "What kind of gift is this indecision?"

Sten shrugged.

"The gift of being allowed to choose."

It took a moment for the words to fully envelope Zevran with their truth.

What was he doing?

Had it really been so long that he’d felt something for someone else, so long that he’d panic and act like a skittish young colt, bucking at the slightest jealous sensation? Shame coursed through him, but deeper than that was the permeating sense of truly being grateful.

Grateful to Sten, of course, but also to Ruari.

For her patience.

For the kiss they’d shared.

For the proposition he was happy she’d turned down, in the end, because had they gone to bed together when he’d asked… oof. Had that come to pass, then Zevran was certain that he would have been suffering even more acute pain, sharp within his breast.

He wanted to speak, to thank the Qunari before him, but no words came to mind that would do the feeling justice. Thunder rolled onward behind them, the smell of crushed clover and wet moss cloying at Zevran’s nostrils as the night continued to grow darker and darker around them. With the rain having dropped off, Sten seemed content to sit right back down and look out towards the river. It was as if he did not need reassurance that his words had reached Zevran’s heart.

After a moment, Zevran sat as well, pulling one leg up on the rock he rested upon in order to rest his chin against his knee. Sten sat by him, seemingly meditating, as Zevran tapped out a little rhythm against the stone.

In time, the sweet tune of Leliana plucking at her lute (yet another gift from Ruari) joined the night’s refrain. It was a dull little ditty, one muted by the sound of the crickets who came once more to scritch their legs at the now-visible moon, and yet Zevran felt more at peace with it than ever before.

It was not the melody of Antiva, but Sten had shown him it was still yet the melody of home.

“Do you feel far from Seheron?” he asked, his voice small in case it might disturb the hulking figure at his side.

“I am far from Seheron, there is no feeling to be had about it.”

“Does it pain you?”

“More than you know.” Sten opened one eye, rolling it over to where Zevran sat, before closing it once more. “Perhaps only slightly more.”

Zevran couldn’t help but give a chuckle.

“You being reunited with your sword has made you soft, you know.”

“Should you wish to press your luck on that assessment, you are free to meet me here at sunrise.”

“Oh? Will we be having breakfast together? A little bonding time over tea, as it were?”

“No,” Sten sighed as if this were merely part of his meditation. “We will spar, bare-handed, until a bone is broken or blood is let.”

Zevran smiled, closing his eyes.

“I would expect nothing less from you, my friend. I might just take you up on that. I find myself in need of a good thrashing.”

Sten huffed again, only once, and the night symphony swelled around then as they relaxed under a sky unfamiliar and yet somehow still theirs.


End file.
